ChromIQ v4.3.18

For everyone updating from 4.3.17: Auto align in the scanner and camera tool now finds the patches of a ChromIQ chart that it used to miss, the "Advanced…" section there keeps the window's size, and a SpectroScan or CR30 chart laid out with "Prioritise chart area" no longer comes out shifted to the left. The beta option that lets i1Profiler measure a printed ChromIQ sheet now turns the sheet so that its clip border is at the top, and a chart on any paper size can qualify. With that option off, which is how it starts, nothing about your charts, presets, measurements or profiles changes because of it.

Changed (beta, off unless you switch it on)

• The sheet is turned so that its clip border is at the top. The wide clip border of an i1Pro chart is on the left of the upright sheet, so you now turn the printed sheet a quarter turn clockwise: the clip of the ruler's backing board then holds the paper by that border, strip A is the top row and the strip labels are on the right. If you put the clip border on the right in Create Chart, you turn the sheet anticlockwise instead, so that border is at the top too. A chart without a clip border is turned clockwise too. The note written with each chart says which way to turn it. Checked patch for patch in i1Profiler 3.8.8 with the i1Pro 3 file: one sheet 504 of 504, two sheets 1008 of 1008. The i1Pro 2 file follows the same rules, but it could not be opened in i1Profiler yet.
• Any paper size and any number of patches per strip. In 4.3.17 a chart qualified only when its strips nearly filled i1Profiler's 241.5 mm row, so Letter, A4 landscape and the small photo sizes never did. ChromIQ now sets the width of i1Profiler's page so that each i1Profiler row holds exactly one strip, whatever its length. The patches only have to be 7 to 25 mm long along the strip, for the i1Pro 2 and the i1Pro 3 alike, and every strip has to be full. This was compared cell by cell with i1Profiler 3.8.8's own chart on A4, Letter, A4 landscape, 4 x 6 inch and 5 x 7 inch paper, with patches from 7 to 25 mm long (the i1Pro 3 file); whatever the chart, check that i1Profiler shows exactly the grid the note names (step 5 of the note). That check matters most on small paper: the narrowest i1Profiler page proven so far is 168.4 mm wide (4 x 6 inch with 25 mm patches), and some charts get a narrower one, for example 162.25 mm for a postcard with 12.5 mm patches. A very large chart does not fit on one i1Profiler page, which is at most 1270 mm tall: that is more than about 150 strips when they are 8 mm wide, or about 100 when they are 12 mm wide. Such a chart gets the note, which says so and how to make one that fits.
• The i1Pro 2 file is now written for patches from 7 mm long, as the i1Pro 3 file is. 4.3.17 wrote it only for patches at least 10 mm long along the strip, so a chart with shorter patches, for example 8 x 8 mm, got the i1Pro 3 file alone. i1Profiler itself lets you make patches as short as 7 mm for the i1Pro 2, and pharmacist reports on the forum that such a chart reads fine with it, so ChromIQ now writes the i1Pro 2 file for every patch length from 7 to 25 mm too. As before, the i1Pro 2 file follows the same rules as the i1Pro 3 file, but it could not be opened in i1Profiler yet, so it has not been checked there.
• Charts made with 4.3.17 keep working. Their files were written for the anticlockwise turn and their note says so: turn those sheets the way their own note says. If ChromIQ writes the files of that same chart again, a measurement made with the older file is still put on the right patches, and the new note says that the files were written again, so you load the new file in i1Profiler and turn the sheet clockwise.
• A chart without spacers is no longer refused for spacers it does not have. 4.3.17 wrote no i1Profiler test-chart file for a chart with Spacers set to None whenever the box "Edge spacers (bracket each strip)" under Expert Options was still ticked, and its note said "the chart has spacers at the ends of its strips". That box is ticked by the built-in i1Pro presets, by every Guided chart and by charts and presets made from them, but with Spacers set to None it prints nothing: the sheet is exactly the same with it ticked or not. ChromIQ now asks the sheet itself, so such a chart gets its files. (Reported on the forum by pharmacist: 504 patches, 21 strips of 24, 8 x 10 mm.)
• A "Prioritise chart area" chart is told why its strips are too long. That layout stretches every strip over the whole height of the page. On A4 and Letter portrait that stays within one i1Profiler row, so such a chart qualifies (24 strips of 27 patches on A4 does, for the i1Pro 2 and the i1Pro 3), but on taller paper it does not (on A3 the strips are 363 mm long). Its note now says so once and names the setting to choose instead, "Prioritise patch size, then fit to page".
• A measurement that fits the chart in more than one way is no longer guessed at. On a chart that repeats its colours (every patch the same, for example), a measurement can fit the chart's patches in more than one order, and each order would put some readings on other patches. ChromIQ used to take the first order that fitted. It now refuses such a file, says why, and changes nothing; measure that sheet in ChromIQ instead. A measurement made in ChromIQ (or with ArgyllCMS chartread) says so in the file and is filed as before. Charts made with the option off are not affected.

Fixed

• "Edge spacers (bracket each strip)" under Expert Options is greyed only while ticking it cannot change your printed sheet, which is on the i1Pro, i1Pro 3 Plus and ColorMunki (ChromIQ always brackets their strips anyway) and on a chart with no space between its patches; it stays available on the SpectroScan and the CR30 whenever there is space, also with Spacers set to None, its tooltip says why when it is greyed, and your tick is always kept.
• The info text of "Edge spacers (bracket each strip)" now says what the box really does. It used to say that ticking it does not reduce the patch count. It can: ticking it keeps one extra space, as wide as the space between two patches, before the first and after the last patch of every strip, so on the SpectroScan and the CR30 a strip can hold one patch fewer and a chart can need another page (for example 600 patches on a CR30 with a 1 mm gap and Spacers set to None: 21 instead of 22 patches per strip, and 3 pages instead of 2). The text now also says that the box only matters when there is space between the patches, and that ChromIQ always does this on the i1Pro, i1Pro 3 Plus and ColorMunki. Nothing about your charts changes.
• The info button of "Straight strips" is hidden together with its box. On every chart except a CR30 honeycomb the box is hidden, but its info button was left behind on its own, for example on a SpectroScan honeycomb.
• Auto align in Tools ▸ Build profile with scanner or camera finds the patches of a ChromIQ chart even when its first guess lands beside them. Every strip and every row of a ChromIQ chart is the same size, so the search could put its grid one, two or three whole strips to the side of the patches. Auto align then gave up and said the chart "looks the same whichever way round it is turned", which was not true and sent you to the Rotate button, which could not help (thank you, Knut). It now also tries the grid a few whole patches to each side and uses the one position where the colours match the chart. When no position matches, it now says so plainly and tells you how to place the four corners yourself, and when the colours match equally well in more than one place, for example on a chart whose colours repeat, it says that instead of guessing. On a dark scanner lid it also no longer refuses a grid that is on the right patches just because the lid shows around the edge of the sheet.
• Auto align no longer places a grid turned a quarter that does not have the chart's shape. When the chart chosen was not the one scanned, Auto align could still accept a grid turned a quarter turn and squeezed into the outline of the sheet, so that every patch was much taller or wider than on paper, whenever the colours of the two charts happened to line up that way (for example two smooth ramps running in different directions). The grid then sat many patches away from the real ones. Auto align now only turns a grid a quarter when it keeps the shape of the chart, so such a scan is refused with the advice to check the chart chosen. A chart turned on the glass is still found, and so is a square or nearly square chart, whichever way round it lies. 4.3.17 did the same.
• A SpectroScan or CR30 chart made with "Prioritise chart area, then fit patches to it" no longer comes out with its patches shifted to the left. While Create Chart is open, and while the window "Which presets can be used for verification" is open, ChromIQ works out in the background which presets can be used for verification. A chart made or previewed at that moment could come out with its whole block of patches about 3 mm further to the left than the same chart made a moment later. It happened only on the SpectroScan and the CR30, only with row indicators on beside a clip border that prints something (notes, text, branding or an image), and only where ChromIQ keeps the row indicators clear of the whole clip border so that the page does not lose patches. The number and the size of the patches were always right, and the TIFF, the .ti2 file and the scanner files of one chart always matched each other, so a chart that was printed and measured reads correctly. This had been so since 4.3.14.
• Opening or closing "Advanced…" in the same window no longer changes the size of the window. It used to shrink or grow the whole window. The settings column scrolls instead, and on a short window the log below it shows fewer lines while the section is open, so there is more room for the settings; the log gets its lines back when you close the section. You can still drag the top edge of the log to give it more or fewer lines while the section is open, and that split is kept until you close the window.

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Installation (Linux, beta): Download the tarball for your architecture (x86_64 for most desktops/laptops, aarch64 for ARM systems like Raspberry Pi 4/5). Extract with tar xzf ChromIQ-Linux-*.tar.gz, then run ./ChromIQ/ChromIQ. Requires ArgyllCMS — install via your package manager (sudo apt install argyll) or from argyllcms.com/downloadlinux.html.

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☕ ChromIQ is free and always will be — if it saves you time or ink, a coffee is a kind way to say thanks. Completely optional, and the app stays fully featured either way.